Senseless
by JadziaKathryn
Summary: Dying, Tom writes a letter to baby Miral. Please R&R! Part 2 up by request! Seventeen years later, Tom is still is stasis.
1. Part 1

Disclaimer: Paramount owns the characters and the ship. This story was inspired by the "Dead Letters Home" challenge, where a character is dying and can write one last letter.  
  
SENSELESS  
  
A young, quarter-Klingon teenager walked into cargo bay 2, carrying a padd of an old design. She sat down beside a stasis chamber that had been running for sixteen years, back facing Seven of Nine's alcove, and began to read.  
  
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Dear Miral,  
  
I don't know where to begin. I can picture you now, safe in your mother's arms. You're only a week old, and I'm already going to die. But I have a few minutes before this asteroid becomes my grave. It's already Ensign Mechani's.  
  
In one week, you've changed my life. Maybe every new father says this, but I'm the proudest dad in the galaxy. You're so beautiful, so much like your mother. I wanted to see you grow up, and be a part of your life. I wanted to show you Earth, and teach you to be a great pilot, and escort you down the aisle on your wedding day. I wanted you, your mother, the brothers and sisters you'll never have, and I to be together. I wanted to encourage you to be the best you could without hampering who you are. I wanted to learn from my father's mistakes.  
  
And now I'm going to die on an asteroid after a battle with yet another alien race, and leave you fatherless. Don't let your mother do anything risky; I can't bear the thought of leaving you orphaned. I'm sorry for leaving so soon, Miral. I didn't want to. This was supposed to be a routine survey mission. I was only going to leave you for a few hours, but now I'm leaving you forever.  
  
There's so much I want to tell you, and so little time left to tell it. I don't even know for sure if you'll ever get this. I love you and your mother so much. Look to the past for great holodeck programs. I made a lot of mistakes in my life, but coming on Voyager, and getting lost in the Delta Quadrant, were the best things that happened to me. It's because of them that I met your mother, and am lucky enough to call you my daughter.  
  
I'm sorry, Miral. I don't want to leave you and your mother, my B'Elanna. I would die for you two, but I don't want you to have to live knowing I died senselessly, for no cause, no reason. I know what it feels like. I'm sorry...  
  
Love,  
  
Dad  
  
"We found him, B'Elanna. But he's almost dead. The only thing we can do is put him in stasis until the Doctor can figure out how to save him." Janeway knew the words would be of little comfort to his wife.  
  
"No...."  
  
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Sixteen years later, her daughter echoed her cry softly, staring at a face frozen in time. "No...." 


	2. Part 2

1 Disclaimer: See Chapter 1  
  
Author's Note: I wasn't really planning on a second chapter for this story, but I had a couple requests for more. So here it is, with a heavy angst warning.  
  
SENSELESS, PART 2  
  
B'Elanna Torres knew she was about to depart the world of the living, along with the rest of Voyager's crew. The Borg had done awful damage to their ship, and though they blew up the cube, it was going to be too late. The warp core was about to breach, and half the hull was gone anyway. The power was gone, and though B'Elanna knew where every button on her console was by touch, there was nothing she could do but wait to die. In her estimation, she had twenty seconds left. She was just about to contact Miral when Vorik coolly announced that he had prevented the breach.  
  
"How the hell did you manage that?" she gasped.  
  
"Logic dictated that…"  
  
"Cut to the chase, Vorik."  
  
"I shut off the core using the remaining residual energy from the weapons fire by…Commander?" Emergency power came back on in time for the Vulcan to see the newly promoted Lieutenant Commander race out of Engineering before darkness took over again. He decided this was most likely due to her concern for her daughter, and with that conclusion he resumed his work.  
  
But it wasn't Miral that was on B'Elanna's mind. It was Tom. Seventeen long years ago, she had rigged his stasis chamber so that it would last as long as the ship did. Power would be drawn in from the warp core, among other places. In seventeen years and through countless battles, her rigged-up system had never failed. It had come close, but never actually failed and allowed Tom to die.  
  
This time, though, it was different. She could feel it. They had come too close to destruction, and the system shut down. She tried to deny it as she raced in beside the chamber. He was still in there, but he was dying. Vorik had saved the rest of them, but there was nothing that could be done now to save Tom. The Doctor still couldn't help him, Seven's nanoprobes hadn't worked, and now the stasis chamber had lost power.  
  
The doors swished open, and Miral walked in. She had known, too, engineer- in-training that she was. She looked at the readings on the chamber.  
  
"It's too late."  
  
B'Elanna knew this was a question; Miral was hoping that a miracle could save her father. "There's nothing left to do for him."  
  
"Daddy," Miral whispered. Tears ran down her face. She lifted the lid of the stasis chamber, because it wasn't doing him any good now. There wasn't even emergency power.  
  
B'Elanna looked at her husband, seeing his face in the beam of light she shone from her wrist. After all the years, he remained unchanged. For years she had clung to the hope that he would someday be revived, that a miracle would snatch him from the looming jaws of death. Now that hope was shattered.  
  
Beside, her, Miral spoke in a soft voice to the still form in front of them. "Daddy, I never even knew you, but I love you. I've always loved you, and I wish there was something I could do." Tears flowed freely down her cheeks.  
  
"I know you don't want to die, Tom. I know you're fighting with all you've got. 'Do not go gently into that goodnight.' Remember that, Tom? We read it and thought it would never apply to us. We were so naïve then."  
  
Miral sat silently, watching her mother. She had never known her father, and yet there had always been hope. Now the only thing left to do was listen as her mother said farewell. Watching her, Miral decided to leave. This was between her parents. It was not her place to be there, so she slipped out the door.  
  
"In seventeen years, I haven't taken off this ring. I've honored our vows, Tom. I love you so much, and I've never really learned how to live without you. Miral has been the only reason I even survived these years. But life without you hasn't been nearly as much fun. Every time Harry told a joke, or Seven made some blunder in her path to humanity, I've wished you were with me. When Miral said her first word, I wished you were there to argue with me if it was 'mama' of 'dada.' I taught her to fly for you, but she's going to be an engineer. She's a wonderful girl. I wish you had seen her grow up.  
  
"How am I going to go on without the hope that you'll someday be with me again? I've waited for the day that the miracle would happen, and now it never will. You were the one who taught me how to live. I don't know if I can do it without you."  
  
B'Elanna checked the console, and saw that he was slipping away. She held his cold hand in hers. "Wait for me in Sto'vo'kor, Tom. I know that's where you're going."  
  
Suddenly he was gone. Alone in the cargo bay, B'Elanna finally had to let her husband go. He was gone, and there was nothing that could bring him back.  
  
She went outside and hugged Miral tightly, and they cried together. There were no words of comfort she could offer her daughter. Tom Paris was dead, and he had taken part of his wife with him.  
  
B'Elanna was on the verge of losing what little control she still had, but there was one more thing she had to do. "Torres to Janeway."  
  
"Yes, B'Elanna?" The tension of the bridge came through in the Captain's frazzled voice.  
  
"He's gone."  
  
The tears came like a waterfall then, and B'Elanna didn't even try to stop them. Tom was dead, and nothing in the universe could make her soul stop aching. 


End file.
